The "patterns" movement

When designing homes and commercial buildings, architects and engineers often use patterns. And before some of you react and say, surely John isn't going to go down the well-worn track of comparing information systems design and construction with the building industry, relax. The reason for mentioning the topic is the work of an architect by the name of Christopher Alexander. In 1977, he co-authored a book, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, about patterns within architecture. He dared to suggest that non-professionals familiar with the basic patterns of architecture could design buildings, and even towns, themselves. Perhaps understandably, some qualified architects didn't like his line of thinking. The thought of novices generating designs for themselves without an architect's involvement (and fees) was threatening. Heaven forbid!

Another patterns book emerged in the 1990s that gave recognition to the foundational patterns language work of Alexander. This time it came from the ranks of information systems professionals. It was titled Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, and was produced by the so-called "Gang of Four" (Gamma, Helm, Johnson, and Vlissides)¹⁶. This highly praised work was squarely aimed at object-oriented (OO) programmers.